25 Frederick Buechner Quotes From the Theologian and Author

Learn more about the influential writer and preacher through these Frederick Buechner quotes.

Carl Frederick Buechner was a talented and successful Presbyterian minister, a preacher, and a well-known author.

He was born in New York City in 1926 and died in Rupert, Vermont, in 2022 at the age of 96.

Buechner’s family moved around each year when he was young until she was ten years old and his father committed suicide.

His family then moved to Bermuda, and the life of greenness, light, and fragrance on the island helped to bring healing to young Buechner.

After high school, he served in the military for two years before finishing college at Princeton, where he learned he loved to write.

During his Senior year, he yearned to know Christ better and entered the seminary.

Take a look at these Frederick Buechner quotes to learn more about the inspirational man.

Frederick Buechner Quotes About Christianity and God

Throughout his life, Buechner had a lot to say about God and His love.

1. “Life is grace.” — Frederick Buechner

2. “Leave it to God.” — Frederick Buechner

3. “Lord, catch me off guard today.” — Frederick Buechner

4. “Go where your best prayers take you.” — Frederick Buechner

5. “Where your feet take you, that is who you are.” — Frederick Buechner

6. “A miracle is when one plus one equals a thousand.” — Frederick Buechner

7. “Coincidences are God’s way of getting our attention.” — Frederick Buechner

8. “Justice is the grammar of things. Mercy is the poetry of things.” — Frederick Buechner

9. “Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.” — Frederick Buechner

10. “Turn around and believe that the good news that we are loved is better than we ever dared hope.” — Frederick Buechner

Encouraging Frederick Buechner Quotes

Check out these encouraging quotes from the American author.

11. “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen.” — Frederick Buechner

12. “If we are to love our neighbors, before doing anything else, we must see our neighbors.” — Frederick Buechner

13. “Jesus is apt to come into the very midst of life at its most real and inescapable moments.” — Frederick Buechner

14. “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” — Frederick Buechner

15. “You can kiss your family and friends goodbye and put miles between you, but at the same time, you carry them with you in your heart.” — Frederick Buechner

16. “The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done.” — Frederick Buechner

17. “The time is ripe for looking back over the day, the week, the year, and trying to figure out where we have come from and where we are going to.” — Frederick Buechner

Inspirational Frederick Buechner Quotes

Here are some of the most inspirational quotes from Frederick Buechner.

18. “Your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need.” — Frederick Buechner

19. “I find I need to put things into words before I can believe that they are entirely real.” — Frederick Buechner

20. “Pay attention to the things that bring a tear to your eye or a lump in your throat because they are signs that the holy is drawing near.” — Frederick Buechner

21. “Wherever people love each other and are true to each other and take risks for each other, God is with them, and they are doing God’s will.” — Frederick Buechner

22. “The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt.” — Frederick Buechner

23. “What we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else.” — Frederick Buechner

24. “The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you.” — Frederick Buechner

25. “One life on this earth is all that we get, whether it is enough or not enough, and the obvious conclusion would seem to be that, at the very least, we are fools if we do not live it as fully and bravely and beautifully as we can.” — Frederick Buechner

What Are Some of the Big Accomplishments in Buechner’s Life?

He married his wife Judith in 1956 and was ordained by the Presbyterian Church in 1958 before taking over the religious department at Phillips Exeter Academy.

Buechner published thirty-nine books, and his writing career lasted more than six decades.

His skill and longevity as a writer led to many accolades and many praising his talents, including The New York Times.

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